Effie is a platform game and action in a colorful world where our hero escapes a little from the traditional canons
Today we analyze a children’s story in a video game, Effie. A title of Spanish origin developed by Inverge Studios. An adventure that tells from its first minutes the story of an unconventional hero in a world of witches and magic. Galand, our protagonist, is the victim of a spell caused by the witch Melira, which makes him an old man. On his journey in search of ancient ancestors, he will discover that he must prove that he has a pure heart by ridding the world of Oblena of jewels of evil and thus be able to regain their youth. A game that has good ideas, a colorful world, but fails a lot in its execution.
Effie is a 3D platform game, with action, puzzles, exploration and some collectibles to enrich the adventure. In a small dungeon as a tutorial, we will discover the main playable mechanisms. Jumps between platforms and collection of runes with which to level up and improve our power. Soon we will have our main tool in the game, the shield Runestone
Welcome to the Red Plains of Oblena
After clearing the first dungeon and reaching the shield Runestone, we will be able to move freely in Red Plains of Oblena. A vast and colorful world through which we can move at full speed while riding our beloved and versatile shield. Throughout Oblena we will find several areas to visit, three major cities corrupted by evil gems, and several places to get collectibles through different challenges.
The three main places that we will have to cross to complete the main story of Effie These are closed areas full of enemies, puzzles, and platforms. Here we will start to see the first flaws of the game, almost always applied to the technical section. Although visually the design of the scenarios is beautiful and colorful, almost all areas suffer from cut, where several textures are superimposed on others or cause lightning when moving on the stage. Something that ends up being quite boring throughout the adventure as it repeats itself in almost every area. In addition, when multiple enemies meet on the screen, the drops of frames they are constant and hamper the combat animations which are not too polished either.
The world of Oblena is full of runes that will strengthen our protagonist. We will also learn new combat skills that will give us more tools to defeat enemies that do not pose a great challenge. We will also have several confrontations with the witch Melira which are reduced to fighting against waves of enemies or overcoming areas of platforms with environmental puzzles. Something which added to a low difficulty, makes it monotonous.
Difficulty for all audiences
In playable terms, I think Effie is aimed at a young audience and with little experience in the genre. The combat phases and the puzzles will not be a great challenge for somewhat experienced players. The most demanding part is the platform areas, where some jumps require more precise execution. In addition, its narrative as a children’s story can appeal to the little ones in the house.
Effie is fully dubbed in english and it has a jovial and joyous music which animates the adventure. Although this is another of the parts where the game is watery. For most of the adventure, the sound effects were accompanied by a “flashback” which gets very annoying, especially if you’re playing with headphones. I also want to point out that after I completed each phase and returned to the open world area, the music was gone and I had to close the game to get it working again.
The last obstacle I encountered was due to a rather poor lighting system. Almost every time I died in the game was due to the fact that many interior areas were poorly lit. It was virtually impossible to see where the next platform to jump was. While it’s not just indoor lighting issues, in open world areas the game has dramatically darkened your image for no reason just a few feet away.
Effie’s final conclusions
Effie It was an adventure with more shadows than lights. Its aesthetic is very pleasing to the eye and the areas of the platform are quite fun. A game that I would recommend to a child audience with little experience in the genre. The fight is not difficult and ends up being monotonous after their first encounters. The technical sound and visual failures end up weighing negatively because they are not specific events. Its narrative and plot is also geared towards a young audience since the voice acting, while decent, is very overhanded at various times. A game that could perhaps improve a lot with a patch that corrects the many technical errors it contains. Although today it is difficult for me to recommend it to the general public.
Effie
$ 19.99
Advantages
- Beautiful visual and design section
- A gateway for the smallest of the house in the platform genre
The inconvenients
- Very simple and monotonous combat
- Constant images drop with a few enemies on the screen
- Poorly implemented lighting that goes from one extreme to the other
- Poor quality of sound effects and loss of music forcing you to restart the game several times to get it back
Table of Contents